


Thursday's Child

by someonestolemyshoes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Child's POV, Children, Eremika - Freeform, Gen, child!Eren, child!mikasa, eren's pov, levihan in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someonestolemyshoes/pseuds/someonestolemyshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was nine the year she came, ten the year we ran, and I don't like to think about the things that happened after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Very Long List of Weird Things

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I was going to wait until I'd written a decent amount of this before posting, but I'm a huge loser and I couldn't physically wait anymore so here you go: chapter one. Feel free to follow me on tumblr (someone-stole-my-shoes) for updates or to read the drabbles I haven't gotten around to posting yet. 
> 
> Also a reminder: this is written from a childs point of view, so it's very stream-of-consciousness-y in places and I'm just experimenting with the style because it's fun and I wanted to try out the fic idea alright no more talking from me.

Mikasa came out of nowhere.

It was a Friday, I remember because me and Armin - he’s my best friend - had been playing in one of the back rooms of the book store, and we only get to do that on Fridays while I wait for Mum to pick me up after she’s done the cleaning and the shopping and whatever other stuff Mums do on Friday.

We were building a fort out of the shelves and the books – Armin’s grandpa hates when we do that, he always says _‘those books are fragile’_ and we always say _‘sorry sir’_ but we keep building anyway – when the bell over the door jingled and Dad came into the shop.

That was the first Weird Thing.

Mum always picks me up on a Friday, because Dad doesn’t finish work until super late sometimes – Mum says his job is _really_ important and that a lot of people need him a lot of the time, so I guess it’s okay that he’s not around all that much and anyways, Mum is cool enough.  

The second Weird Thing was that he didn’t come say hi. Mum always comes to see us, even when she’s carrying shopping bags bigger than me and she’s breathin’ heavy and her cheeks are red and I know that all she wants to do is go home. She always comes through to the back room and says _‘wow! You built this all by yourself?’_ and we always nod and say _‘uh hu’_ , and Mum always smiles and ruffles my hair and then she says _‘sorry’_ to Mr. Arlert in that quiet voice Mums use when they don’t want kids to hear ‘em.

But that day it was Dad, and he went straight to the front desk where Mr. Arlert was reading the paper, and Mr. Arlert put the paper on the desk and they said some things and then they both looked kinda sad. When Dad gets sad his face gets full of lines. His nose and his cheeks and his forehead and his mouth are made of lines and usually they’re soft, and they go in all directions but when he’s sad they’re hard and they all go up-and-down and it was happening then, the worst I’d seen them since the time Grandma left us.

I looked at Armin and he looked at me and we didn’t say anything. We sat in the fort – it was dusty from all the old books and the back room was kind of cold – and we spied on the front desk while Dad and Mr. Arlert talked about whatever it was that was making them sad. I remember picking at a scab on my knee – I got it playing down by the river with Armin (that’s one of our favourite places to play, even though Mum doesn’t like it very much because it’s _dangerous_ ) - and it bled when I pulled at it.

And then Dad came in and he said _‘ready to go, son?’_ and I said _‘do you like the fort? We made it ourselves’_ and Dad didn’t say anything. I waved goodbye to Armin, and I thanked Mr. Arlert on the way out like I did every Friday, and he said _‘have a good weekend, Eren’_ which was the third Weird Thing, because he normally doesn’t say a word.

It was sunny when we got outside, which was cool because it was really early in April and usually it’s still kinda wet and cloudy but that day it was warm and fresh. It was so warm I had to take off my scarf – Mum always makes me wear it when the weather is cold so I don’t get sick, and it’s red and kind of ratty ‘cuz I wear it so often, but it’s still nice.

I said _‘can we go play catch in the park?’_ and Dad was quiet for a little while and then he said _‘not today, son’_ and I said _‘okay_ ’, even though it wasn’t.

When we got closer to the house Dad stopped and he said ‘ _Eren, listen. We have a guest staying with us, okay? She’s around your age’_ and I said _‘a girl?’_ , which I wasn’t happy about because the only girls I knew were the girls at school, and the other boys bully you if you talk to them, and I didn’t wanna get bullied for having one staying in my _house_. But Dad said _‘yes, a girl, and you need to be nice to her, you understand? She’s had a rough few days'_  so I said _‘okay_ ’ again, even though it wasn’t okay at all, and Dad nodded and squeezed my shoulder, and then we rounded the corner and I ran the rest of the way, up the front steps and into the kitchen.

And there she was.

She was sitting in my chair at the kitchen table, and Mum was kneeling in front of her like Mums do when they’re trying to be friendly and not like Mums, and Mikasa was sucking on her shirt sleeve with one of her legs bouncing like mine does when I’m nervous before a Big Race.

Mum looked at me and she said _‘hi, honey’_   and I said _‘who’s she?’_ and Mum looked at Dad in that way she looks at me when I’ve done something to embarrass her in public. Dad scratched at the back of his neck, shrugged a shoulder and said _‘I didn’t know what to tell him_ ’.

 _‘Eren, this is Mikasa. She’ll be staying with us for a little while_ ’, Mum said, and I said _‘okay’_ because I knew that’s what she wanted me to say.

Mikasa wasn’t lookin’ at us. She was staring at her own toes with the biggest, darkest eyes I’ve ever _seen_ , almost as dark as the hair on her head but not quite as shiny, and her leg was still bouncing and it was making the chair legs creak.

I said _‘why is she here?’_ and Mum looked back at her, and she did the Mum Sigh – the loud, slow one Mums do before they tell you something important – and then she said _‘I’ll explain soon, I promise’_ which I understood to mean _it’s Grown Up stuff and you’re too little to get it_ , which made me kind of mad, but last time this happened Mum and Dad sat me down and tried to explain Taxes and it was really boring, so I decided I didn’t want to push again.

 _‘What time’s dinner?’_ I said instead, because it was getting late and I hadn’t eaten since lunch and I was _starving_ , and Mum said _‘Soon, I’m just making pasta today, with that tomato sauce you like. I haven’t been shopping yet_ ’ which was the _fourth_ Weird Thing. Mum always does the shopping on a Friday, even that time she had the flu and was too sick to cook after, or that time she broke her wrist slipping on ice Christmas before last.

The only time I can remember that she _didn’t_ shop on a Friday was the week Grandma left us, because that Friday they went out all dressed in black and left me with Uncle Hannes, and when they finally picked me up we had to get take away food on the way home, because Mum _hadn’t been shopping yet_.

I said _‘kay_ ’ and Mum said _‘why don’t you show Mikasa some of your toys?’_ and I looked at my feet because I wanted to say no, ‘cuz she’s a girl and my friend Reiner always told me that girls shouldn’t play with boys toys, which I thought was weird, because they’re just _toys_ and my mum has played with them before and she’s a girl, but he said it’s what his dad told him, and his dad is a cop and he knows a lot of stuff so he’s probably right.

I dragged my feet over to Mikasa – Mum whipped my shoulder with the tea towel because my trainers sometimes leave marks on the wood and they’re really hard to clean off – and stopped in front of her chair. She looked at me with those huge eyes (they’re so big and they’re black as night and you could definitely fall in ‘em if you looked too close) and I looked at my shoes and said _‘wanna come play with my cars?_ ’ and she said _‘okay’_.

She slipped off the chair and onto the floor. Her bare feet made this slapping noise on the wood, like mine do when I run really fast without socks on. I didn’t know what to do with my hands – if I want Armin to move anywhere I pull on his sleeve, but Mum always told me it was rude and I shouldn’t do it – so I put them in the pockets of my jeans like my dad does and I went upstairs. I knew Mikasa was following me because the stairs are really creaky and I could hear her behind me the whole way up.

When we got to my bedroom door I stopped and turned and said _‘wait here’_ , and then I got some spare socks from my drawers and gave them to her, because my bedroom floor sometimes has splinters and they’re really not nice to take out the bottoms of your feet.

I’ve got this huge toy box that lives at the end of my bed that Dad made when I was even smaller than I am now and it’s dark wood and I keep all my cars and games and dolls in there so that I know where everything is if I wanna play with it. I opened it up and moved to one side so Mikasa could take a look, and I said _‘you can play with anything’_ and she reached for my Buzz Lightyear and I said _‘except that_ ’. She put it back and picked up one of my new Transformers and I said _‘or that’_ , and she put it back and made a face like she was thinking really hard.  

 _‘You can have this one_ ’ I said, and I gave her an old toy car. It still worked okay, it just wasn’t as cool as my newer ones and the wheels made a weird scratchin’ noise and they sometimes jammed if you played with it for too long. Mikasa took it and ran it back and forth across the floor in front of her knees.

 _‘You don’t talk much_ ’ I said, because she hadn’t said many words at all and I wondered if maybe she was real stupid and hadn’t learned them yet, but then she looked up at me and I saw the whole world in her eyes and I realised she knew an awful lot more than I did and for a minute, I felt kind of sad for her. Mikasa just pulled her sleeve up to her mouth and took it between her teeth, then went back to rolling the car.

We didn’t say much at all while we played, and then Mum called us down for dinner and I was quiet while we ate, sneaking handfuls of grated cheese from the bowl when nobody was looking and listening to Dad talk about work while Mum gave Mikasa worried kind of looks.

After I helped wash the dishes – I turned nine last month so now I gotta do more chores than before – Dad took me up for a bath and I got ready for bed, and I didn’t see a thing of Mikasa for the rest of the night.

It’s been a week now and she’s still here. She’s started talking more and she’s actually pretty cool - she’s been to loads of places I can’t even pronounce the name of, and she says she’s eaten snakes and sharks and _dogs_ but I don’t know if I believe her. One day I asked her where her parents were, but Mum shouted at me and Mikasa went really quiet and stopped eating her lunch, so I've never brought it up again, even though I’m still curious. Mikasa didn't talk for the rest of the day, but next morning she was back to normal, like nothin' had happened at all. 

Just another Weird Thing in a very long list of Weird Things.


	2. Down by the River and Through the Trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge massive thank you to e'ryone who read, bookmarked, liked and commented you're all stars and I love you very much and I promise I'll get around to replying individually eventually. So, here's chapter two for ya - I'm going to try and keep my updates regular, but I won't promise anything because I'm useless at staying on top of things. Feel free to follow me on tumblr @ someone-stole-my-shoes if you want more updates, and you can find more of my fics on my blog.

Mikasa came with a lot of homework.

She brought Strangers in Suits with briefcases and stern expressions - like the one my P.E teacher gets when me and Jean get into a fight before a Big Race - and they brought piles and piles of papers that Mum and Dad had to read through and whisper about and sign. Sometimes, when the Strangers came by, me and Mikasa would have to leave, which kind of sucked because I got kicked out of my own _house_ and that’s just super unfair, but it meant I got to spend loads of time in the book store with Armin so I guess it was okay. Mikasa helped us get our fort lookin’ pretty neat, but we broke three of the really old books that Mr. Arlert doesn’t like us using and he did a _lot_ of shouting.

Worth it, though.

It was a Thursday when I finally asked about the Strangers in Suits and the briefcases and the papers, and I remember because we had P.E. at school _and_ we got chips for lunch, and we only ever get chips on Mondays and Thursdays and on Mondays we don’t have P.E. We were having dinner (chicken and sweetcorn and _more_ chips) when I said _‘mum, why does Mikasa come with so much homework?_ ’ and Mum said _‘it’s not homework, dear, it’s paperwork. Like the forms Dad has to fill in for clients at work_ ’ which sounded an awful lot like homework to me, but I didn't argue, because last time I did I got the Lesson on Taxes and I don’t ever wanna do that again, so I just nodded and said _‘okay’_.

I chewed on some sweetcorn and stabbed at some chips with my fork. Mum put her knife and fork down on her plate, and she looked at Dad and he looked at her, and they both had faces like they wanted to say something, but didn't really know how to say it. Mikasa pushed her chicken around her plate and sucked on the sleeve of her jumper.

 _‘Eren, son’_ Dad said, _‘your mum and I have to sign all these papers so that Mikasa doesn’t have to go away_.’ Mum looked worried, like she thought I was gonna be mad or sad or something, so I said _‘that’s good, ‘cuz I don’t want her to have to go anywhere’_ , and Mum smiled and Dad smiled and Mikasa sucked some more of her sleeve into her mouth and her cheeks went cherry red, like my friend Marco’s do when he gets to hold Jean’s hand for the Buddy System on school trips.     

She looked cute. Not cute like a puppy is cute or a kitten is cute, just _cute_.

It made my tummy feel weird to keep looking at her, like I’d been eating mouthfuls of butterflies instead of sweetcorn.

**

Mikasa changed a whole lot in the first couple weeks she was here but the thing I noticed most was that she stopped bouncing her leg so much a couple days after she appeared. Mum says she only did it because she was nervous, and I said _‘what does she have to be nervous for?’_ and Mum was quiet for a minute and then she said _‘new places can be scary, sometimes’_ which I thought was a stupid answer, but I couldn’t tell her that because then she’d get mad and I wouldn’t get pudding for a whole week and _nothing_ is worth that.

Instead of the bouncin’, Mikasa is super still all the time, except for when she’s sleeping. We sometimes have sleepovers, where we’ll both sleep in the same bed and play with my toys (it took a few days, but I finally let her play with my good Transformers and so far she hasn’t broken anything), or read the books Armin gives us until we fall asleep. But when we share a bed I always notice how much she moves around and it’s sometimes hard to sleep when she’s kicking me or twitching her hands or jerking her head.

It’s not so bad though. I like hanging out with her, even if it does hurt when she digs her toes into my shins. 

It was a really warm, the Saturday me and Armin first took Mikasa down to our spot by the river. So warm that Mum didn’t even make me wear my scarf. She said we needed to be careful, ‘cuz it’d been raining for the last few days so the river was higher and faster than normal, and I said we’re always careful (which isn’t true), and Mum told me to take care of Mikasa. I said _‘don’t worry, I’ll look after her’_ , and Mikasa’s cheeks went that kind of red that makes me feel a little bit sick but in a good way.

It’s not a far walk, but the path is kinda thin, which means we've always gotta walk in a line instead of side by side.

I led the way that day, with Mikasa behind me and Armin behind her with this _huge_ book in his arms, and it was kind of slippy from all the rain we’d had so I made Mikasa hold my hand, mostly so she wouldn’t fall but also because she had really soft hands and I liked it.  

Me and Armin talked most of the way, shouting back and forth past Mikasa, but she didn’t seem to mind all that much. She doesn’t do a lot of talking unless we’re alone. I asked her about it once, when we were brushing the hair on some of my dolls 'cuz they’d gotten all tangled in the toy box. I said _‘why don’t you talk much?’_ and she shrugged a shoulder and said _‘I like to listen’_ and I wanted to say that I liked listening to her so she should talk more, but it sounded weird in my head so instead I said _‘okay’._  

Our spot isn’t very far down the river, but it’s in this little circle of trees – Mum calls it a _copse_ but I always get the P and the S the wrong way round and it sounds stupid, so I don’t say it – and you’ve gotta squeeze under some low branches to get in. I went through first and Mikasa followed me with her hands over her hair to stop it catching on the twigs and stuff. Armin came last. He always manages to tangle himself on the way through and I’ve tried telling him he’s gotta get a haircut, but he says he likes keeping it kinda long so I gave up.

It’s all open inside the trees and the floor was spongy and soft and kinda wet that day but we all sat down anyways. Mikasa looked out at the river. This bit is out favourite ‘cuz when the river is lower, like normal, there’s a little rock pool that Armin likes to look in. He always pulls weird stones and stuff out of it, and one time he found a fish in there, so we built up the edges with more rocks to trap it in and keep it as a pet, but when we came back the next day it’d gone and we still don’t know where it went.

There’s also a big patch of sand right at the edge of the river that you can stand on (when the water isn’t moving so fast) and in the summer it gets nice and warm between your toes and it’s almost like being at the beach.

That’s what Mikasa was staring at when we all sat down.

Armin didn’t want his book to get wet so he sat with his legs crossed like we have to do in assembly at school, and he opened it up in his lap.

I said _‘what’s this one about?’_ and Armin said _‘Traveling, it’s got all these places with snow and sand and oceans and huge mountains and volcanoes that shoot fire’_.

 _‘I’ve seen one of those’_ said Mikasa. She was still staring at the little beach and her eyes were all shiny, like she hadn't blinked in a while, and they were really empty, like the whole world had fallen out of them. _‘Volcanoes’_ , she said. _‘And I've been to the places with the snow and the huge mountains, too’._ She blinked and tucked her knees right up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her shins.

Armin said _‘what about the ocean?’_ and Mikasa nodded. _‘I wanna go back to there most’_ she said, _‘more than anything’._

Armin flipped through the pages in his book and then stopped on one and turned it so we could see it. Mikasa had to drag her eyes away from the sand to look at him.

 _‘All rivers lead to the ocean’_ , Armin said, pointing to a picture full of squiggly blue lines and Mikasa looked back out over the water. _‘I bet you could follow this one all the way there, if you really wanted’._

Mikasa just stared, all wide-eyed and quiet and empty and when I looked at her, she looked _heavy_. I dunno another way to explain it. It was like her skin weighed too much for her bones to hold up. I didn’t like it. 

So I said _‘how about it, huh?’_ and Mikasa turned to look at me and Armin said _‘what?’_ and I said _‘one day, when we’re older and Mum will let us, we’ll follow the river all the way to the ocean’_.

**

It’s bed time now, and Mikasa is all bouncing legs and sleeve-sucking and I think it’s because she’s starting her first day at school with me and Armin tomorrow, but she hasn’t said anything so I haven’t asked. She’s supposed to be in her own bed tonight. Mum said that we both needed plenty of sleep because tomorrow is a Big Day, but I was too nervous to sleep so when Mikasa tip-toed through my bedroom door with her sleeve between her teeth I said she could sleep in here with me.

She’s lying down lookin’ at me and the whole bed is moving ‘cuz she can’t keep herself still. I say _‘school will be fine, everyone is really nice’_ and Mikasa says _‘except for Jean?’_ because I’ve told her about all the horrible things he’s done and how annoying he is. I say _‘yeah, except for Jean’_ and Mikasa pulls the duvet right up to her nose and giggles. She doesn’t laugh all that often, but when she does it sounds kind of nice. And then she yawns and says _‘I’m really tired’_.

She closes her eyes and cuddles into my spare pillow (I used to use with two, but now that Mikasa sleeps here so much I always keep one on the other side of the bed for her). I feel weird just watching her, so I roll over ‘till my back is facing her and I’m staring at my curtains and tryin’ not to think about how my friends will react when they find out I live with a girl.

I know she’s asleep because the leg bouncing stops and the twitching begins. She kicks at the backs of my legs with her toes and her head tosses on the pillow, but then she stops again and she settles, and she says _‘Eren?’_ and I say _‘yeah?’_ and she says ‘ _all the way to the ocean, right?’._

I roll over to look at her, because she hasn’t said a thing about our trip to the river since yesterday and it’s weird that she said it now, but her eyes are still closed and she's all snuggled down in the duvet so I just say _‘yeah’_ and turn back over to sleep. _‘All the way to the ocean_ ’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta say something real quick about where this story is going with regards to the People in Suits Eren is talking about - there's a reason Eren's parents aren't raising him to treat Mikasa like a sister, and all will become clear in time so just have a little faith, okay? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this chapter, drop me a comment and let me know what you're thinking lovelies.


	3. The Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is only a diddy chapter, and it's kind of heavy, but it's an update, so yay! The good news is, I've got the whole thing kind of fleshed out from start to finish and I know whats coming each chapter, it's just a case of getting it done. 
> 
> Anyways, thank you so much for your patience! You can follow me @ someone-stole-my-shoes on tumblr if you wanna chat about things or read any of my other fics, or give me any prompts or whatever and yeah okay go

It was a Saturday, and the weather was super wet and rainy and Mikasa was having a Bad Day.

She has them sometimes - gets really upset for no reason, and when she has ‘em she does a lot of staring and a lot of leg-bouncing, and sometimes she cries but most days, she’s just super quiet. 

Mum tried to explain ‘em to me once, the Bad Days. She said _‘sometimes people feel sad or bad or scared about everything and nothing, and it’s really hard to stop thinking about those thoughts and feelings once they get into your head’_ and that made me think about the time I got ‘I've Got a Song That’ll Get on Your Nerves’stuck in my head and it wouldn't leave for _days_ , and it was just there all the time, while I ate breakfast and went to school and played with Armin, and it was worst right before bed, and I think that’s kind of what happens with Mikasa on her Bad Days. ‘Sept instead of a stupid song, she’s got all these nasty ideas playing on a loop all day, and I can see why that would make her sad. 

I was pulling the cucumber out of my sandwiches – Mum always puts cucumber in ‘em even though she _knows_ I hate it – when Mum said, _‘is Mikasa settling in okay at school?’_ and I stopped swinging my legs and pulled a little seed out of the bread. Mikasa was doing fine now, but the first day had been what Mums like to call _rocky_ , and I still don't like thinking about it. So I said _‘mhm’_ , and Mum said _‘you sure? She hasn't said anything, but she’s been down all week’_ , and I shrugged a shoulder.

_‘Dunno’_ , I said, but it was a lie and Mum knew it, because the very tips of my ears get real hot when I lie. She said _‘Tell the truth, Eren’,_ and I poked my finger through a hole in the bread and stared at the table.

She said _‘don’t play with your food’_ , so I stopped, and then she said _‘and sit up straight’_ , so I did, and then she sat down beside me and tried to look me in the eye in that way Mums do when they’re trying to be scary and teacher-like.

_‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’_ she said, and she touched my cheek with her knuckle like she does when she wants me to look at her, so I did. _‘But I need to know that you’ll look after her, okay?’_

I said _‘Mikasa can look after herself’_ , because it was true – I watched her punch Jean in the face at lunch one time when he was tryna find out how many boyfriends she had (it was twelve) – and Mum said, _‘I know, I know’,_ and then she looked out the window like she does when she’s thinking about something super important, and she looked back at me and said _‘But you gotta make extra sure she’s okay, alright? Because she’s your friend, and that’s what friends do’,_ and I couldn't argue with that.

Mikasa was in her room and I was _kinda_ jealous that she got to eat her lunch in bed, because I _never_ get to eat my lunch in bed, but she was having a Really Bad Day today and Mum said it was best to let her be in her own space for a while. Which meant she didn't get to come to Armin’s with me like we’d planned, but I suppose it’s okay, seems so she wasn't feeling good.

Didn't stop me knocking on the door on my way past, though.

I pushed the door open – the hinges on Mikasa’s door are super squeaky, and opening and closing it always makes my ears ache – and stuck just my head through, kinda like Dad does when he’s on his way out somewhere and wants us all to know he’s leaving.

She was curled up in her sheets with one of Armin’s books open on her knees, just skimmin’ her fingers up and down along the edge of one of the pages, and she didn’t even look at me when I called her name.

I said, _‘I’m going to Armin’s now, are you sure you don’t wanna come?’_ and she looked at me then, all big, full eyes and _nothing nothing **nothing** else_ and it made me feel kinda sick to keep lookin’ at her, so instead I looked at the lunch plate on the bedside table.

She hadn't touched a bite.

* * *

The bookshop was super busy when we got there, and Mum wanted to stay and keep an eye on us until things quieted down, but she couldn't leave Mikasa at home for too much longer so she left pretty quick, throwing a lot of _sorry’s_ at Mr. Arlert as she went. Since we built the Really Cool Fort with Mikasa, making a new one didn't seem all that fun, so instead we grabbed some blankets and hid out in the shelves in the corner of the back room, away from the wind blowing in from the front door.

Armin picked a book out for us – it was _huge_ and jam-packed with words and pictures and a lot of stuff I didn't really understand – and he set it down in front of us and opened it to one of the middle pages.

I looked at the book for a little while, then said, _‘Mikasa is having a bad day’_ , and Armin pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

I tried to explain the Bad Days to Armin, but I don't think I was very clear and I'm not sure how much he understands it either, but it makes him uncomfortable whenever I bring it up and I know Armin is super smart, so I think he maybe gets things better than I do. I pulled my knees right under my chin and rested my head on 'em, and just stared at all the words I couldn't pronounce and the pictures that didn't make sense.  

One time, when I was seven, me and Armin found this stray cat at the bottom of the garden. It was super tiny and black as night, and it’s eyes were all gunky and funny-lookin’ and it was nothing but skin and bone and fur, and I picked it up and ran back into the house and Mum did a lot of screaming, but Dad let me wrap it up in a towel and keep it in a box in my room.

I fed it warm milk from this little push-needle that Dad gave me each and every day and I made sure it was nice and clean and toasty warm, but it didn't matter what I did, it never really got any better.

And then one day I woke up, and the box was empty.

Mum said he must’ve left in the night, must’ve gotten better and hopped out the window but I never ever felt right about it, like something was really wrong and I coulda done more to help, and right then, curled under a mountain of blankets in the back room of the bookstore with Armin and the Giant Book, I thought about Mikasa, and I felt kind of the same way.

* * *

It’s been a few days and Mikasa is still pretty bad, but she ate dinner with us today and Mum thinks she’ll be able to come back to school before the end of the week, which is good because I kinda miss havin’ her sit with us at lunch. Jean doesn’t dare say anything stupid in case she hits him again, and since Mikasa started sitting with us, all the other girls have come along too, and it’s been pretty nice, having everyone together all the time.

Dad makes me have a bath, even though I had one last night and I’m not even _dirty_ , and he leaves some clean PJ’s on the stool for me to change into once I’m dried.

I call into Mikasa’s room on the way to mine, to say goodnight and stuff, because I say goodnight to her every night even if she sometimes doesn’t say it back.

The hinges squeak and my ears ache and Mikasa is curled up in the covers, and she looks really tiny and sad and _tired_. I have to kneel next to her bed to look at her, ‘cuz it’s super low down compared to mine, and when I do she stares back at me and _her eyes-_

-One time, in science class, we learned about black holes and how they suck in all the _stuff_ in the universe, like how a hoover sucks up all the dust and dirt and mini army men from your bedroom floor, and how they’re just these really big pools of _nothing_ that pull things deeper and deeper into their nothingness, and that’s kind of how Mikasa’s eyes look now.

I drop my cheek to the mattress to face her properly – my neck is super uncomfortable and bent all kinds of wrong, but I wanna get a good look at her – and for a long time she just blinks at me, and I blink back.

I say _‘are you still sad?’_ and she pulls her sleeve up to her mouth and sucks it between her teeth. She looks at me for a while, then lets her sleeve out of her mouth and says _‘no, just kinda empty’._

I say goodnight, and she says it back, and the hinges scream when I close the door and I try not to think about _empty_ because I think empty is much, much worse than sad.


	4. The Birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been like seven million years since I updated this oh my god. The good news is, I have the next chapter ready too, it just needs editing, and I'm going to post that soon to make up for posting nothing. Then it's gonna be another like twelve years before I update but at least you'll have two new chapters right?? rIGHT?? ahaha im sorry i am terrible

A lot of things have changed since Mikasa came to live with us. We don’t have a spare room anymore, and there are four places set at the dinner table, and there are always two _thank you Mr. Arlert’s_ when I leave the book store on a Friday instead of one, and there are an even number of kids in our class and Mum frowns a lot more than she used to.

And the girls sit with the boys at lunch time. 

That’s the weirdest thing; girls and boys never used to sit together, _ever_ , because that’s just the way it was, and I know that’s gotta change at _some_ point because my mum’s a girl and my dad’s a boy and they sit together all the time, but I didn’t think it’d happen in year four and I definitely didn’t think it’d happen because of me.

Well, me and Armin and Mikasa.

Things were getting better, way better, and Mikasa was happy (kind of, she still gets all quiet and gloomy sometimes, eyes all big and black and full of nothing but for the most part, yeah, she’s doing okay), and the girls sit with the boys at lunch time, and it was Marco’s birthday party last weekend.

Which is what I wanna talk about.

Marco lives _really_ far out of town and his house is super cool, with loads of fields and great, huge sheds full of hay and cows and sheep and some stuff that smells like you probably shouldn’t touch it.

The inside of his house is pretty cool, too. It’s really tall and thin and there are like ten billion rooms – finding the bathroom was hard and Armin nearly peed himself, but I didn’t – and Marco’s room is painted blue and the bed is a race car, like the ones you see on the TV but I didn’t think you could actually get ‘em.

The best part about the girls sitting with the boys at lunch time is that the girls got invited to Marco’s party. Which meant _Mikasa_ got invited to Marco’s party, which meant I got to spend the whole day with her _and_ Armin _and_ all our friends from school.

And Jean, he was there too.

Mikasa was having a really Good Day. It was nice, to spend time with her when she was happy because sometimes, even when she’s okay in the house, she gets all quiet and kind of _stuck_ in herself when we leave, like she left all her good mood in her bedroom. She even helped me pick out Marco’s present - we ended up getting him a new football, 'cuz we lost his last one when we (I) kicked it out of the yard at school.

The whole party was a lot of fun; we ate cake, and Marco opened all of his presents, and he let us _play_ with his presents, and we watched a movie and Marco drank a spoonful of vinegar for his birthday dare.

But there’s this one thing…one thing I keep thinkin’ about over and over. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing or how hard I shove it to the back of my mind, it always pings it’s way back like those little pieces of blu-tack I shoot at Connie with elastic bands when I think the teacher isn’t looking.

We were playing hide and seek when it happened.

It was kind of cold for summer – cold enough that Mum made me wear my scarf _‘just in case, Eren,’_ – but as big as Marco’s house is, there isn’t all that much space for a whole class to hide around in, so we decided to play outside instead. Marco made us promise his mum that we wouldn’t go in any sheds with cows or sheep or the weird smelly stuff, and that we wouldn’t go into the trees on one side of the house or past the fence-line on the other.

And other than that, anywhere was fair.

Now, I dunno if I’ve said this before, but I am the _best_ at hide and seek. It’s a game, and I’m always good at games – except that one that Armin made me play with the little square letters and all that _maths_ , I wasn’t all that great at that one. But hide and seek, I’m good at.

We played a few rounds and I won all of ‘em, and then it was Jean’s turn to be It and that’s when things went a little weird.

I know Jean, and I know he’s a ginormous cheater, so I gave myself 30 seconds to find a cool hiding space instead of a full minute, ‘cuz I didn’t wanna get caught before I even had a chance.

I ended up in one of the barns; this one was full of little square bales of hay and the little bits of dust made my eyes itch, but I saw a really cool little hole to fit into during the last round and that’s where I wanted to be.

Problem was, somebody was already there.

I said, _‘Mikasa,’_ all long and whiny like I do when I want something that my mum doesn’t wanna get me and Mikasa blinked up at me, eyes huge and owlish and then she grinned, and moved a little further in to make more space.

I said, _‘this is cheatin’,’_ because it kind of _is_ – you’re not supposed to hide together, really – and Mikasa said, _‘uh uh, it’s only cheating if you plan it,’_ which was fair.

I pulled some of the hay over the top of my head until it kinda covered the opening, and then pulled my scarf over my mouth so’s I didn’t breathe in too much dust.

Mikasa said, _‘now we wait,’_ and I said, _‘yeah,’_ and so we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I know Jean isn’t as good as I am at hide and seek but this was getting super stupid, and my nose was itchy and Mikasa kept sneezing beside me. She’s all cute when she sneezes, her face scrunches up and her eyes go crossed and she twitches her nose in the same way rabbits do, and her sneezes are super quiet compared to mine and when she’s done she goes pink from cheek to cheek.

I looked down at my scarf, and then over at Mikasa, and then down at my scarf again and I remembered one time a couple weeks ago when we were playing down by the river and it’d been super sunny, and when I’d taken my socks off to paddle one of ‘em fell in the water. I was super mad, ‘cuz my shoes rub really bad if I don’t wear socks with them, and Mikasa just shrugged at me and slipped one of her socks off of her foot and gave it to me like it was nothing.

I said, _‘you won’t sneeze if you cover your nose with something,’_ and Mikasa looked at me kinda funny, eyes a little frowny and mouth open like she wanted to say something, and then she sneezed right in my face.

I’ve seen Mikasa’s face look a lot of different ways since she moved in. I’ve seen her look happy and sad and scared and lonely and empty and sleepy and shy and almost every way you can think for a face to look, but I’ve never _ever_ seen it look like it did then.

There’s a big word for it, I read it in one of Mum’s books once – the ones that talk about kissing and triangles and _members_  and then Mum took 'em off of me  – and it begins with an M and it’s kind of like being embarrassed but way, _way_ worse. Mikasa was all red, from her hair to her chin and her eyes were wider than I’ve ever seen ‘em and she was full of sorry’s, and I just laughed ‘cuz it’s always hard to be mad at her.

I said _‘s’okay,’_ and wiped my face with my sleeve, and then I untucked my scarf and looped one end around her shoulders, too. _‘To cover your nose with, stupid,’_ I said and Mikasa dug her face down into the fabric and closed her eyes.

Things went quiet for a while, after that, and my butt was kind of numb and my knees ached and there was a draft creeping in from somewhere behind us, blowing right up my shirt and across my back, and Jean is the worst It I’ve ever seen, ever.

Mikasa must have been getting bored, too, ‘cuz she kept moving herself around and rearranging the hay above us. It was cute, at first, but then it got a little annoying so I elbowed her in the ribs and said, _‘Isn’t Marco’s house the coolest?’_ and Mikasa nodded.

She said _‘yeah,’_ and then, _‘I used to live on a farm_ ,’ and I said, _‘really?’_   even though I wasn’t all that surprised. Mikasa has been _everywhere_ and done _everything_ so it isn’t very weird for her to have lived in all kinds of places, too. _‘Before you came here?’_ I said and Mikasa’s face went a little slack, and my stomach turned in all the wrong ways ‘cuz that’s the kind of face she gets when things are going Bad, but then she shook her head and the Bad cleared away.

She said _‘no, a really long time ago, when my brother still lived at home_ ,’ and I said, ‘ _you have a brother?’_

Mikasa nodded, head bobbing harder than I’ve ever seen it and her face lit up in the kind of smile that makes my head all fuzzy, and she said _‘he's way older than me, but he’s really short_.’ It’s kind of hard not to smile with her when she’s lookin’ so happy and I did, grinned until my cheeks hurt and Mikasa leaned a little closer, till her shoulder was right up against mine and it made my face feel all weird and hot.

I said _‘is he with your parents?’_ and Mikasa shrank into herself, like how snails sink into their shells when you touch ‘em, ‘sept my scarf kept her from going too far so she buried her nose into it instead and shook her head.

She said _‘no, he’s in the army,’_ and then she went silent, and I felt kind of sick.

I wanted to ask her why she was sad, why she’d be fine five seconds ago and what I’d done that made her like this but all I could do was stare at the shell of her and try and pry her back out again.

_‘That’s cool,’_ I said, _‘I wish I had a brother_.’ Mikasa nodded, a little too slow and her eyes were growing a little too empty, but then she shook her head again and said, _‘I hope you get to meet him one day, I think you’ll like him_.’

Mikasa curled herself a little deeper into her jumper, then, just as a huge blast of cold wind slid right up the back of my jacket.

_'Where's Jean?'_ I said,  _'he's the worst at this game,'_ and Mikasa shrugged and said  _'I'm cold,_ ' and I tugged at her sleeve until we were curled right up together and I rested my head against hers like I do when we're sleeping, and everything was so quiet and comfy and I only closed my eyes for a second. 

I woke up to Jean screaming like he’d just beat me in a Big Race, and not taken eight billion years to find me in a game of hide and seek. Mikasa blinked and rubbed at her eyes, wiping little bits of grass and hay from her face.

I climbed out of the hole first, and then I pulled Mikasa with me and my scarf was still wrapped around the both of us and it made Jean laugh and point, and he said _‘Eren’s got a girlfriend,’_ and I thought about the word _girlfriend_ and how weird it was, because Mikasa is a girl and she is my friend and so I shouldn’t have been bothered, but it was _Jean_ , so I tugged my scarf off of Mikasa’s neck – probably harder than I should have – and re-wrapped it around my own.

I was gonna say something back, but then I saw Connie whisperin’ something to Reiner, and Reiner passed it on to Annie, and Annie to Sasha and Sasha to Armin and everyone was smiling, gigglin’ behind their hands like they do in class when the teacher does something stupid and we know we’ll get told off for laughing.   

Armin wasn’t, though - he was shuffling from foot to foot, ringing his hands together and looking between me and Mikasa like we were gonna shout at him, and then he scooted over to Jean and passed the message into his ear.

Jean said _‘boys kiss their girlfriends, Jaeger,’_ and I took one _huge_ step away from Mikasa.

I remember, one time when I was super little, asking Mum why she kisses Dad whenever he leaves the house, and why he kisses her whenever he comes home and she said it’s ‘cuz kisses are on loan; you don’t keep ‘em, you gotta give ‘em back after a little while. She said if she kisses Dad before he leaves it means he’s gotta come home to give her her kiss back.

I didn’t wanna kiss Mikasa, ‘cuz she’s not going anywhere so I had no reason to. And I told Jean so, with my arms crossed and my chest puffed out and my eyes as far away from Mikasa as I could get them. And Jean said _‘you’re such a baby, can’t even kiss a girl_ ,’ and I’m not a baby. I’m _nine_. So I did what any nine year old would do.

I kissed Mikasa.

I pushed my lips out and pressed ‘em right on Mikasa’s, with my eyes scrunched all the way closed and my breath held high up in my lungs. I stayed there for three whole Mississippi's and then I pushed her by the shoulders and held her there with one hand, while I wiped my mouth with the back of the other.

I said _‘now you gotta kiss me back,’_ and Mikasa was blushing worse than I’ve ever seen, cheeks red as cherries and she sucked her sleeve up into her mouth and stared down at her shoes. _‘You gotta kiss me back,’_ I said again _, ‘cuz you don’t get to keep kisses forever_.’

Mikasa dug the toes of one shoe into all the loose hay on the ground and everyone was just staring at us. I don’t think anybody expected me to do it, and I don’t think they knew that you had to give kisses back ‘cuz they all looked super surprised that I’d mentioned it.

I didn’t even have time to close my eyes again, because one minute Mikasa was staring at the scuff-marks on her trainers with her teeth nipping at her jumper and then next she was leaning right over between us and dipping her head to kiss me right on the mouth.

She pulled back quicker than I did and her face was so red I thought all the blood might start leaking out of her.

Nobody was saying anything, even Jean had shut his mouth and everyone was staring at us like we’d just grown extra heads.

And then Marco’s mum was shouting that Bert’s parents were here, and we all scrambled back for the house without another word.

* * *

It’s been a week, and Mikasa is being _weird_.

We’ve had tea already, and Mum made me bathe _again_ even though I cleaned this morning, all because me and Armin got a little muddy playing by the river, and now it’s bed time and Mikasa isn’t in my room.

Mikasa is always in my room on a Saturday, ‘cuz my room has a better tv and on Saturdays Mum lets us watch a movie before bed, but tonight she isn’t here and it’s making my stomach hurt.

It’s not that she’s having Bad Days, really; she isn’t quite as full of holes, not as numb or empty as she is then, she’s just being super quiet. And only with me.

She’s still talking to Armin, still plays with Annie and Sasha at break times, still talks to Mum and Dad after dinner. It’s just me, and I feel super sick when I think about it and my stomach feels all tight and heavy, like I’ve swallowed a tonne of those little silver balls they put in the pinball machine.

Mum comes in to kiss me goodnight, and when she does she looks at me in that way she sometimes looks at Mikasa, like she’s trying to see right through her skin and into her brain to work out exactly what it is that she’s thinkin’ and I say, _‘I think Mikasa hates me_.’

Mum sits down, after that, and she asks me why I would ever think that, and I tell her everything. I tell her about the party, about hiding in the hay and Mikasa living on a farm and her brother and her parents, about me kissing her and her kissing me and about everything being Jean’s fault and Mum cuddles me like she hasn’t in what feels like forever, all tucked up on her knee with her chin on my head and her hand on my back.

I didn’t realise I was crying until now.

It feels kind of good, like I’m crying out all the pinballs, and the weight gets less and less until there’s practically nothing left. Mum sets me back on the bed and says, _‘She doesn’t hate you,’_ but I don’t really believe her.

I cry again when Mum leaves, but only a little bit, only the last few pinballs I didn’t get out the first time, and when my stomach feels light and empty (too empty, the scary kind of empty) I close my eyes to sleep, with my fist curled on the cold pillow where Mikasa should have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i mean fluff is good? And i wonder who mikasa's brother could be hMM HMMMM? and we all know where mikasa's parents are by now I'm sure. ANYWAY there are a few more fluffy-ish chapters coming your way before it's all angst central so my bad in advance.


	5. In Love with A Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i am putting this up now because I think you guys deserve another chapter before I am on hiatus for the next 8 million years, so here you go - the chapter that started the whole fic.

Being nine is  _hard_. 

There’s a tonne of stuff you gotta do in the day; get out of bed ( _hard_ ), get dressed ( _hard_ ), brush your teeth and make your bed and tidy your room ( _so hard),_ and that’s all before breakfast. 

Then you gotta eat, which is pretty great, but you’re nine and that means you’re old, and you gotta start helping out around the house. So you gotta wash the dishes ( _hard_ ) and clean the table, and follow your Mum around for a while to make sure she’s doin’ things okay on her own. That’s the most important part of the day. 

And now, we have Mikasa, and I gotta do  _all_  that and make sure she’s okay, too. Dad say’s it’s important to look after your women, and now I’ve got  _two_  to keep my eye on.

_Hard_. 

Mikasa is ‘specially difficult, because she still gets kind of sad sometimes, and I still don’t really know why. Mum says it’s because she misses her parents, and one time I said ‘ _well why can’t they come visit?’_  and my Mum got kind of quiet and said ‘ _they’re too far away to come visit, but she’ll see them again one day’._ I don’t really know where they could be that’s too far for them to visit their own kid, but whatever. Maybe Australia or somewhere. 

Mum says she’ll explain it better one day. 

Mikasa is super fun though. She hangs out with me and Armin a lot more now, when she’s not sad, and there’s so much more cool stuff we can do now that there’s three of us. And sometimes at night - even though Mum says we shouldn't anymore, 'cuz we have to get used to sleeping in our own beds like grown ups - Mikasa comes into my room or I go into hers and it’s like having a sleepover buddy  _all the time_. 

Except sometimes she’s crying, and when that happens I hug her like Mum hugs me when I cry, and sometimes we sleep like that. 

It’s kinda nice. 

I thought she was having one of her Bad Days, earlier today. She’s been super quiet since Marco’s birthday party, and we haven’t had a sleepover night  _once_  and she’s been kinda weird, not talking to me and not playing with me but today was the worst. It’s Sunday, so we had breakfast a little later than usual, and Mum didn’t make me clean my room and Dad got called into work (he’s a doctor, so he makes people better when they’re sick and stuff) so it was just the three of us. 

I asked Mum for some extra milk for my cereal. I had cornflakes, and Mum had grown up cornflakes (they look like the kids ones but they’re made of cardboard, and she always puts sugar on them when she thinks nobody is looking), and Mikasa’s just stirring her Cheerio’s and staring at the table like she does on Bad Days. 

Mum got up to get me the bottle from the fridge, and I kicked Mikasa under the table and said ‘ _It’s Sunday, you shouldn’t be sad’,_ and she just said ‘ _sorry’_ and let go of her spoon. 

Mum was watching her when she came back, and her brows were all crinkled like they get when she’s thinking too hard about an answer to the crossword puzzle. 

We were kinda quiet, and it felt horrible sitting at the table with them because I knew Mum wanted to talk to Mikasa, but I was still eating and all I was thinking about was how Armin would be home from Church soon, and how we could go down to the river like we did last weekend. 'Cuz it's summer now the weather is warm, and the sun is out, and I get to go swimming in our little pool by the river, and Armin likes to pick things up from the bottom and look at them for ages. It’s kind of weird, but he’s my friend so it’s okay. 

I was still thinking about that when Mum took my bowl away and said ‘ _why don’t you go wash your hands, hun,’_  and I said ‘ _okay’,_ because my Mum likes to do this thing where she says something like it’s an idea, but she’s really telling you to do it and the first few times I said  _no thanks I’m okay_  she told me off, so I learned pretty quick not to argue. 

I went to the bathroom to wash up because there’s a stool in there that I can stand on to reach the sink, and also because I’m not stupid and I knew that Mum wanted some time to talk to Mikasa without me there. 

Didn’t stop me from sneaking back to listen, though. 

I had to tiptoe down the stairs, because the house is kinda old and the steps creak when you stand on them, unless you press your toes right up against the backs and use the walls to hold yourself up. It’s tough, but I’ve had loads of practice and I’m pretty good at it now. 

Anyway, I got to the kitchen, and sat down on the floor outside so I could listen. Nobody was saying anything. Someone was washing dishes (probably Mum, she doesn’t make Mikasa do that yet), and I had to wait for _ages_  for that to stop and when it finally did I heard Mum say ‘ _Mika, honey?’_ and Mikasa said ‘ _mhm,’_ and Mum said ‘ _somethin’ you wanna talk about?’_ in that voice mums use when they’re trying to sound friendly and not like mums. 

I dunno what Mikasa did but it was quiet for a really long time, and then a chair scraped back across the floor (we’ve got wood flooring in the kitchen and when the chairs move it makes this really gross noise that makes my teeth sting) and I heard the sound of Mum’s slippers dragging as she walked around, and she started putting dishes away. 

Dad has been telling me that Mum worries a lot, lately. She’s always thinking about how Mikasa is sad and Dad says it scares her, and I don’t really understand why it’s so scary that Mikasa get’s upset sometimes. 

Dad says he’ll explain it better one day. 

Anyways, I was thinking about giving up and tidying my room (Mum said I didn’t have to, but I’m nine now and Dad says grown-ups have a routine and I’m gonna be a grown-up soon, so I should have a routine, too) when I heard another chair scrape, and Mikasa’s feet followed Mum’s across the kitchen. I took a peek around the door frame to watch, because my ears are really good, but my eyes are better and it’s nice to see what’s going on.

Mikasa tugged on Mum’s trousers, and Mum bent down to listen to her and Mikasa said ‘ _I wanna talk about something’,_ and Mum’s face got all worried. She knelt down and took a hold of Mikasa’s elbows, in that way teachers do when they’re trying to be like Mum’s and not teachers, and she said ‘ _everything okay?’_ and Mikasa said ‘ _how do you know you’re in love?_ ’ 

I’ve never really thought about Love before. My dad says there’s tonnes of different kinds of Love. He says the Love I have for Mum is different to the Love he has for Mum, and the Love I have for Armin is different to the Love I have for him. I don’t really know what he means. 

He and Mum said they’ll  _both_  explain that better one day. 

Mum’s cheeks looked tight, like she was trying not to smile, and she said ‘ _why do you want to know?’_

Mikasa looked at her toes and shrugged a shoulder. 

‘ _I think I’m in love with a boy_ ,’ she said, and Mum stroked her thumbs over Mikasa’s arms. She said, ‘ _in love with a boy?’_ and Mikasa said, ‘ _mhm,'_  and then she said ‘ _he goes to school, and he’s really nice, and he has really pretty eyes and we used to be friends,’_ and then she paused to take a breath. Mum said ‘ _you aren’t friends now?’_ and Mikasa shook her head. 

I didn’t understand that at all, because Mikasa is friends with everybody. She can be kind of quiet sometimes, but she’s really nice and she’s super pretty, so everybody likes her (even  _Jean_  likes her, which makes me mad and Armin says that’s weird, but he picks up stuff out of the river so he can’t talk). 

‘ _We’re not friends anymore,’_ Mikasa said, and Mum said ‘ _why?’_ and Mikasa said ‘ _because I’m in love with him, and Annie says girls can’t be friends with boys they’re in love with’._

The more I listened to her talk the more mad I felt, and I had a weird  _thing_  in my stomach that made me feel a little bit sick. There aren’t any boys good enough for Mikasa. None of the boys at school are as nice as her, with eyes as pretty as hers or hair as soft as hers and she deserves nothing less than the best. 

‘ _Mika, baby, you can be friends with anyone you wanna be,'_ Mum said. Mikasa chewed on the sleeve of her shirt and Mum said ‘ _even if you are in love with him. Maybe he’s in love with you, too’._

Mikasa dropped her chin to her chest like I do when I’m embarrassed and she said ‘ _I hope so’_ and Mum said ‘ _so you’re gonna start talking to him again? No more frowns about him?’_ and Mikasa nodded her head. 

I can’t say I’m all that happy about knowing Mikasa is In Love, honestly, but talkin’ about it with Mum must have made her feel a tonne better, because when Armin came knocking after church she came with us to the river, and she sat on the side with Armin and looked at the weird stuff he picked out, and then she dived in the water with me and we played for  _hours._  Then we had to walk home in wet clothes and Mum shook her head at us when we came inside, but she had that smile on her face that Mum’s have when they’re talking with other Mum’s about things they can’t tell kids about and she booted us upstairs to bathe and change for bed. 

* * *

 

And Mikasa is with me right now, for the first time in ages, and my arm is going dead because she’s asleep on it, and one of her feet keeps twitching and kicking me in the shins, and her hair is still kinda wet from the bath and it’s making my shoulder cold. 

But it’s kinda nice. 

She’s got a real pretty smile on her face in her sleep. If all it takes for her to be this happy is to be In Love with A Boy, then I guess I’m okay with it. Dad said I’ll have to watch out for her, though. I asked him why and he said ‘ _one day when you’re older, son’_ and I said ‘ _okay’._

Being nine is hard enough. I don’t wanna think about how hard being  _older_  is gonna be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you will have read this before on tumblr - it was a stand-alone fic I did aaaaages ago, but it's the fic that made me want to write an entire story in kid!eren's voice and so I edited it a little to fit better with the plot.


	6. The Man in the Pinstripe Suit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy back at it again with the one-chapter-six-month-break business! If I've got one thing going for me it's consistency. 
> 
> OKAY so from this chapter onwards things are going...kind of sour. There will be cute moments because this is baby Eren of course he's gonna do cute shit but things are going to start taking a turn and this is the beginning so buckle up boys.

 Like every other –day, Wednesday comes around once a week, but it’s only once every _other_ week that I hate it.

It’s not like there’s anything really wrong with it – we don’t have Maths on Wednesday’s, which is pretty good because me and Maths don’t get along at _all_ , and we always get ice cream on the way home on Wednesday’s because the shop is open later and Dad usually gets Wednesday evenings off so we’re all at home and all in all, they’re really not that bad. It’s just…every other Wednesday, the Man in the Pin-Stripe Suit comes around with his notepad and his fancy pen and his box of tissues and for a whole hour and a half he locks himself away with Mum and Mikasa and half the time Mikasa comes out crying.

She says she’s okay, when I ask her - she says _‘I’m supposed to be sad, so it’s alright’,_ and then she smiles and I don’t really get why anybody would be happy about being _sad_ but there’s something about her smile that makes my chest go all warm and full and so I shrug it off, but I always watch my mum walk the Man in the Pinstripe suit to the door and he packs away his notebook and his fancy pen and they talk some more and then he leaves, and he never takes the box of tissues with him.

It was one of those Wednesday’s when my dad finally talked to me about it.

I guess he thought I was finally Old Enough for something, but when he sat me down on the sofa and took his place in his arm chair with his legs crossed and his hands folded on his knee and his glasses perched on the end of his nose I didn’t feel anywhere near old enough at all.

He said, _‘You don’t like it when the_ _psychologist_ _comes around?’_ and I just shrugged a shoulder. Dad looked at me, and then he said _‘the man in the suit, Eren. You don’t like it when he’s here, do you?’_ and I shook my head hard enough for my brain to bang into the backs of my eyeballs because nuh-uh, I _don’t_ like it. Dad smiled all soft and understanding, and then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and he said, _‘You know what my job is?’_

I do know – Dad’s a doctor, he makes sick people not sick anymore, and I tell him so with my chest puffed out and my chin held high and Dad chuckles, that kind of laugh dad’s do when kids say something wrong but in a funny kind of way, and then he says _‘yeah, that’s what I do. The psychologist is a doctor, too_.’

There was one time, a few weeks ago, when Mikasa spent three whole days in bed with her head all sweaty and her eyes all glazed and a sick bucket on the floor and she had to take some of this gross, slimy pink medicine that made my eyes all watery when I sniffed it but she’s doing fine now, so I didn’t really understand why Mikasa would need a doctor and I definitely didn’t understand why she needed one to come by every other Wednesday.

I said, _‘Is she sick?’_  and I must’ve looked about as worried as I felt because Dad slipped off of his chair and knelt in front of me like Mum does when I'm sad, and he put his hands on my knees and he said, _‘No, son, she’s not sick. Doctors don’t just help sick people_.’

I thought of all the reasons I’ve ever been to the doctor – sickness, mostly, but there was also that time I slipped by the river and twisted my ankle bad enough to worry Mum into taking me to the hospital, and the time I hit my head so hard I saw actual, real stars and the only other time I’ve been to the doctor was for my jabs.

_‘Mikasa can’t need that many jabs,’_ I said, and Dad did his laugh again but then his face drew in, all up-and-down Sad Lines and he said, _‘Sometimes things happen – bad things - and peoples brains have a hard time sorting through everything. All the wires get crossed and some stuff stops working the way that it should. And when that happens, the psychologist comes in to help.’_

I looked at Dad for a little while and thought about Mikasa. She was alright, for the most part; everything worked the way it should, far as I know. I mean, sometimes she loses control of her legs in her sleep but that’s mostly ‘cuz she’s dreamin’, and I _suppose_ it’s not all that normal for her to eat her way through the sleeves of _all_ her jumpers, but other than that she works pretty okay.

But then I thought about her bad days. I thought about her crying at the leaflet I showed her, the one I got out of the paper, that was advertising this super cheap beach holiday and I just thought the picture was pretty – all sunny skies and the brightest bluest water and sand white enough to make my eyes hurt – and I thought she’d maybe like it, thought it’d cheer her up a little but all it did was make her eyes go all sad and empty and then they just…they just started _leaking_ , like the old tap in the bathroom, and I guess that’s the kind of not-working Dad meant.

_‘So the psychologist is here to uncross Mika’s wires?’_ I said, _‘like the election who came to fix the fridge?’_ Dad smiled the Dad Smile – the kind that makes his eyes sparkle like diamonds but doesn’t do all that much to move the rest of his face – and he said, _‘electrician, yes. Like that.’_

When the _electrician_ came to fix the fridge he didn’t wear a pinstripe suit. He wore jeans and a t-shirt with dirty marks on it and he didn’t bring a notepad or a fancy pen or a box of tissues, just this great huge toolbox with tweezers and wires and red tape and a whole load of other stuff crammed into it. He brought the toolbox, and he used all of his tools to uncross the wires that were making the fridge not work, so I guess the notepad and the pen and the tissues were the psychologists tweezers, and I guess he needed ‘em to uncross Mika’s wires.

_‘But Dad,’_ I said, ‘cuz there was something there that didn’t quite make sense _, ‘the el-ec-tri-cian only came by once,’_ and Dad nodded and he said _, ‘Brains are harder to fix than fridges, Eren. You can’t just pop them open and shuffle things around until they’re working the way they’re supposed to.’_  

I wished you _could_ do that; then the Man in the Pinstripe Suit could stop coming to the house and Mikasa could stop being sad and we’d have a lot less tissue boxes in the sitting room.

Today has been two whole weeks since Dad told me about Crossed Wires and Psychologists and after school I waited outside the sitting room for Mum and Mikasa and the psychologist to come out. Doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can never hear what they’re saying and I suppose that’s good ‘cuz I’m not _supposed_ to hear, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

It seemed like _forever_ before the door swung open and Mikasa stepped out first. She was holding one of the tissues the psychologist brings, ringing it in her hands and tugging little strips away here and there and Mum had one hand squeezing her shoulder, face all tucked up in a frown. Mikasa was sniffling, the skin around her eyes red and puffy and angry and it made something in my chest hurt so bad I stopped breathing. This wasn’t the same as her good-sad crying – there was no smile, no _it’s okay, I’m supposed to be sad,_ there was just…just sad. Real, painful sad.

The psychologist was looking at me like he forgot this is my house, like he was surprised I was there, and Mum straightened out her brow and blew out a breath and said, _‘Honey, I thought you were spending some time with your father.’_

It was supposed to sound stern, like I was doing something wrong and maybe I _was_ , but Mum was the one who told me I needed to look out for Mikasa in the first place so that’s what I’m gonna do, and when I told her so she bit at her lip and her chin wobbled and she nodded once, then let her hair fall in front of her eyes.

Mikasa whispered something I couldn’t here and she sniffed again, and when I met her eyes they looked full to bursting, swimming with tears and holding so much more than one person should ever have to hold. I wanted to take some of it for her, ‘cuz that’s what friends are supposed to do - when Armin’s got too many books and his bag gets too heavy for him to carry, I take a couple to make things a little lighter for him. I wish the things Mikasa was carrying were books so I could take ‘em, and I wish brains were like fridges and I wish the psychologist had tweezers and red tape instead of a notebook and tissues.

I was wishing for loads of things right then, but most of all I was wishing for Mikasa to stop crying.

Most times when I’m upset Mum hugs me, because that’s kinda what Mums are there for - hugs and kisses and driving you to school and cooking you dinner and tucking you in and the list goes on forever - but sometimes, when I feel super bad about stuff I don’t want her to know about, Armin hugs me instead.

Armin’s hugs aren’t as good as Mums. He’s smaller, and he’s never as warm, and he doesn’t smell as good, but I think, maybe, sometimes they’re better because it isn’t a friends job to hug you in the same way it’s a Mum’s job. Armin doesn’t _have_ to do it and I guess it’s kind of nice to know that he's doing it ‘cuz he wants to help.

And, right then, I so _badly_ wanted to help Mikasa.

She didn’t move, at first. She just kind of stood there as I stepped into her space and wrapped my arms right around her back and squeezed just enough so she knew I was there and for a while it was still and silent and super awkward but then she moved, just an inch, and her fingers twisted into the front of my shirt. She blew out this huge, shaky breath right across my shoulder and stepped back, rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve and took off up the stairs without a word.

I wanted to follow her, but Dad shook his head from the end of hallway and then he was going upstairs himself, and I wondered if maybe Mikasa needed a doctor instead of a friend right then.

So instead of heading upstairs, I went to the kitchen, and Mum was in there with the psychologist and they were talking. It looked important, I know so because when Mum is serious she folds her arms over her chest and pulls her brows all the way down to her nose and she was doing it then, looking at the psychologist as he packed away his notebook and his pen.

The floor in the hallway isn’t all that comfy but I sat down anyways and curled my knees right up under my chin ‘cuz the draft from the back door was even colder down there and it’s made my skin crack with little goosebumps.

_‘It’s difficult,’_ he was saying, looping his bag onto his shoulder, _‘bereavement is hard to cope with at any age. Helping a child understand it and move on…_ ’ Mum just nodded her head, squeezing herself a little tighter. _‘She’s not coping well,’_ Mum said, and the psychologist nodded, too.

_‘She’s having trouble adjusting,’_ he said, _‘which is understandable, given the circumstances. We’ll keep working with her the way we are, and if things don’t start looking up soon we can think about referring her to another specialist_.’

There’s a lot of talk after that, words like _illness_ and _prescription_ and _psychiatrist_ bouncin’ back and forth between them but all I can think about is “she’s not coping well”.

_She’s not coping well, she’s not coping well, she’s **not coping well**_.

* * *

I don’t go into her room tonight. Instead, I shut my bedroom door all the way and move my desk chair under the handle so Mum and Dad can’t come in.

It’s been a while since I last got sick so I’m not sure, but I think I’m maybe coming down with something. My head feels all fuzzy, like my brain is made of cotton and my tummy hurts, all bunched up and achy like a great huge knot and my chest feels _horrible_. Doesn’t hurt, so much, just feels kind of hollow, like my heart jumped out of it somewhere between hugging Mikasa and **_she’s not coping well_**. I hit it a couple of times with my fist and with the way it feels, it should sound empty, all spacey and echoing but it just thuds like any normal, full chest would and I think I’m definitely, definitely getting sick.

I try not to, but as soon as I get into bed and pull the covers right the way over my head I start thinking about Mikasa’s Bad Days again, the way she pulls all the way inside herself and won’t talk to me or Armin or Mum or Dad, and I think about how she cries sometimes at things that shouldn’t make her cry and I start thinking about the other things, the things that I never really thought might be weird until now. 

I think about how she sleeps a lot, how she’s always kind of tired even when she’s slept from eight at night to eight in the morning, and I think about how she spaces out sometimes – usually at dinner, she’ll just push her food around her plate and stare at the table and it takes some prodding from all of us to get her to finish her meals, but sometimes it happens in school, too, and the teacher has to drag her out of her own head and back into the classroom – and I wonder if maybe Mum was right. 

Maybe Mikasa really  _isn't_ coping well at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ur catching on eren lad. Thank you so much for anyone who reads/comments/likes etc and I am excited to start getting to the meat of Mikasa's character and her issues and the story itself and just
> 
> See u in September 2024 when I next update.

**Author's Note:**

> So...there's chapter one. Fingers crossed y'all enjoyed it, and I'm hoping you want me to continue it cuz I'm gonna anyway so whatever nerds 
> 
> (also thank you so much for checking it out I owe ya)


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